


Seducing Your Blutbad

by Guanin



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:09:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guanin/pseuds/Guanin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monroe discovers Nick's ulterior motive for wearing so much red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seducing Your Blutbad

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

Nick looked up from the Jagerbar volume he was perusing, frowning at Monroe’s question.

“What?” he asked, dumfounded. 

“This.” Monroe waved his hands at Nick with that affronted flightiness that signified deep offense at whatever was being pointed at. “All this red you keep wearing. Do red shirts comprise half your wardrobe? Because it is not cool, dude.”

Nick paled. The color wouldn’t have the opposite effect that Nick intended, would it? He’d known that there was a chance that it would awaken the more common bloodthirsty instincts in Monroe, but after reading that tidbit in the Blutbaden book about their mating habits, he’d hoped that maybe he could inspire a little something less violent and more naked and bliss inducing. And Monroe was so good at controlling his darker urges. Surely he wouldn’t attack Nick. He’d never shown any sign of it being a problem before. Had Nick misinterpreted those lingering looks at Nick’s chest whenever he wore the color?

“Does it bother you?” Nick asked. “Sorry. Stupid question. Obviously, it does. I thought it didn’t since you never mentioned it. It’s not… It doesn’t make you want to attack me, right?”

“No. Of course not. I would never attack you. That’s not…” 

Monroe’s eyes grew guarded. He looked away, rubbing the back of head as he hunched his shoulders, pacing in as wide a circle as the narrow trailer would allow. 

“There are other factors involved here,” Monroe continued, still turned away from Nick. “You can’t just mess with this stuff.”

Other factors? That sounded promising.

“What other factors?” Nick asked in his most innocent tone, aiming to sound genuinely curious and not as if he were angling for the biggest fish in the pond. 

Unfortunately, he missed his mark, for Monroe’s brow furrowed, and not in his adorably confused or “what’s wrong with you?” way, but in a very suspicious, “What are you doing?” way. 

“Wait,” Monroe said, narrowing his eyes. “Why are you asking like that?”

“Asking like what?” Nick said, doing his best to look perplexed by Monroe’s question while using that befuddled Grimm expression that Monroe mocked him for so often. 

“Like that.”

Monroe went to the bookcase, took out the Blutbaden book, and started searching through it. Oh, shit. Nick stepped forward awkwardly, trying to catch a glimpse at the pages.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why did you suddenly break off and start looking at a book?”

“Not _a_ book. _This_ book. Which I know you’ve read cover to cover, and I’m sure I saw something here about—Aha! Here it is. Mating habits. Speaking of, why do Grimms insist on referring to it as mating habits as if we were like all the other animals? Plus, humans are animals, too. Why not sexual habits or courting or something? Not that ‘mating’ isn’t pretty honest, but—Anyway. It’s right here. ‘In addition to inciting them to bloodlust, the color red is also sexually attractive to them.’ And it’s in English, so you can’t claim German ignorance.”

“Can I claim not having read that part?” Nick asked, becoming increasingly afraid that he had misinterpreted Monroe’s admittedly thready signals. “It’s not like mating habits, or whatever you want to call them, have anything to do with what I do.”

“So what you’re saying is that the only thing you know about Blutbaden and the color red is that it gets us riled up in painfully violent ways and yet you just happen to wear it every other time I see you.”

“Um… yeah. Like I said, I didn’t think it bothered you. You should have told me something earlier. Here. I’m putting my blue sweatshirt on. See? Problem solved.”

Nick extended his sweatshirt-covered arms at his sides to emphasize his point, but this didn’t appease Monroe, either, because a lost glimmer entered his eyes. He closed the book, but his fingers still marked the page, wedged inside the thick volume, unwilling to let it go yet.

“Really?” he asked, and Nick could swear he heard disappointment in his voice. “You had no idea about this other effect?”

Nick hesitated, fortifying himself with a deep breath as he worried about his response.

“Would you like me to have known about it? Is that what you’re after?”

“I don’t…” Monroe dropped the book on the table, his hand gripping one end before finally letting go. “I just want to know if there was a… an ulterior motive.”

“If…” 

_Just breathe man, you can do this. You’ve been aiming in this direction long enough._

“If I was trying to seduce you?” he finished, watching Monroe’s reaction more carefully than he ever had in the two months they had known each other. 

Monroe released the book, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, hugging the open garment over his chest. 

“Pretty much. I didn’t want to bring it up if it wasn’t true, ‘cause then things would get awkward, and I didn’t want things to get awkward in case you were just blanking out at the obvious again, because you do that, man. But then you kept on wearing red and sometimes you smile at me in a way that made me think, maybe he’s not blanking out. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing. Then I remembered this nifty Blutbad encyclopedia here—it’s full of errors, by the way—and how could you not have read it all after meeting me and taking down that kidnapper? I just wanted to know if it was true. If I was right, I mean. So, if I’m wrong, let’s just get it out there and you can stop teasing me with those shirts and we never have to talk about it again. No harm done. You simply didn’t know. I understand that. It’s cool.”

Monroe shrugged, straightening his back to look Nick squarely in the eye, calm comprehension suffusing his face, but Nick had faced enough sincere sounding perps to know when he was being played. He analyzed Monroe’s words, playing them back in his mind over and over until he grew certain of the chink in Monroe’s verbal armor. His breath shortened, chest swelling as he strove to restrain himself from pumping his fist in the air and cheering too soon in case he was the one wrong now. 

“You said,” Nick said, “that if you’re wrong and I’m not trying to seduce you, then we’ll never talk about it again. You didn’t say we wouldn’t talk about it if you were right.”

Monroe’s eyes widened a fraction. His arms tightened at his sides, his hands grabbing at his pockets, given the way they bunched up in the jacket. 

“Are you saying I’m right?” he asked, pronouncing each word slowly, as if afraid to give them voice. Nick couldn’t be sure in the frustratingly dim lamp light, but he thought he saw hope enter Monroe’s eyes. 

“Can we talk about it again if you are?”

Nick chanced a hopeful smile. Monroe frowned for a second longer, then his eyes and mouth widened, so indignant, and, more importantly, so not repulsed.

“All this time…” he said. “You have any idea how crazy you’ve been driving me? Why didn’t you just say it? Okay, so I never said it, either. But you… Get over here, you duplicitous Grimm.”

They met halfway, both their smiles mixing as they kissed, fumbling a bit as they clutched at each other’s back, noses smacking together at one point, but what first kiss was perfect? 

“You take that sweatshirt off right now,” Monroe breathed into his mouth. 

“You got it.”


End file.
